Amarinder orders Vigilance probe into nexus of some officials with mining mafia

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today ordered a vigilance inquiry into the alleged nexus between top officials and mining mafia in the Dera Bassi area of the state.

He also ordered the shunt out of several officials, pending the investigation, an official spokesperson said.

While SDM Paramdeep Singh was asked to report to the chief secretary's office, DSP P S Bal and SHO Pawan Kumar were shifted to the police lines, the spokesperson said.

The alleged nexus came to the fore in the wake of the crackdown ordered by the chief minister after he spotted illegal mining activity while flying over Nawanshahr and Jalandhar districts on Tuesday, the spokesperson said.
 

The chief minister directed the DCs and SSPs of the state's mining districts to expand the ambit of their investigations to cover the owners and actual bidders of the mines, as well as the owners of the equipment used in illegal mining, the spokesperson said.

The directive came during a meeting, convened by the chief minister, of the deputy commissioners and SSPs of 14 districts where mining takes place in the state.

Instructing the officials not to brook any political interference in these investigations, Singh said they should catch the owners and the bidders and not confine the action in illegal mining cases to merely the small fry, such as contractors and drivers.

He also announced the government's decision to depute one Guardian of Governance (Rakha) at each mining site as a step towards curbing illegal mining.

The government, he said, would address all shortcomings in the existing Mining Policy to bring illegal mining to an end and herald a new era in the state.

The officials came out with various suggestions to streamline and strengthen the mining processes. These included GPS tracking of the tippers (trucks), scientific demarcation of the mining sites with proper coordinates, besides installation of WiFi enabled CCTVs at all sensitive check points for monitoring the movement of the vehicles.